


Give to Me Your Leather

by Clymenestra



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man 3 - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And Fools, Gen, Love Is for Children, Natasha is the best of the best, Natasha's new to this whole human interaction thing, and assets don't have friends, and mission assists, and missions, and she is neither, and they have plenty of enemies, assets can't afford weaknesses, but allies certainly can't be trusted, love is a weakness, occasionally the odd ally, people in the Red Room don't care about each other, she can't afford weaknesses, she grew up in the Red Room, so this whole thing where people have her back is weird, they have employers, your value lies only in your worth as an asset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2552366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clymenestra/pseuds/Clymenestra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha had only ever had herself to rely on, but her world was changing, and she along with it. She had to learn to adapt and evolve as others worked their way into her life, her trust, her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha wasn't really a team player. The Red Room had given her the training to play the part convincingly as needed, but she'd spent a lifetime and more isolated from those around her by choice and circumstance. From childhood on, her entire existence had depended on her ability to set herself apart from the hordes of humanity that teemed around her. Depending on others was a risk she could not take. She had to be better, faster, stronger. She always had to be one step ahead. There was never anyone else to watch her back, so she had to be twice as good as the rest in order to stay ahead of the game.

 

Then Clint ensnared her.

 

It was a shock to the system.

 

Not the eventuality of her death - she'd always known there would come a time when she'd make a mistake or someone was simply better at the game than she was. No one could keep things up indefinitely, and she'd lived longer than most despite dabbling in the most dangerous waters imaginable. She'd prepared herself for that inevitability many years ago, and she knew that she would meet her death calmly when it came. Who knew? It might even be a relief to be able to lay down her burden and rest. Fighting for her life day in and day out left a soul drained and exhausted, and she was ready to let go.

 

The true shock, however, lay in her survival and redemption.

 

She didn't know what he'd seen in her or why he spared her life. Had she been in his shoes, she wouldn't have hesitated a moment to take him out. He'd revealed himself to her. She'd seen his face, heard his voice, learned enough to kill him the moment she got away - and she  _would_ get away eventually if he let her live. As arrogant as it sounded, she had the experience to know that no man alive could keep her locked up for long if she didn't want him to.

 

She cursed him a fool at first, biding her time and waiting for the moment of inattention, the minute error that would see her free and him dead. It would come. It always did.

 

In the mean time, he won her with a tool no one had ever employed before, a tool stronger than any implement of torture she'd ever faced: empathy, understanding, and kindness.

 

So Clint was the first.

 

She'd never expected, anticipated, or even hoped to find herself with someone in her life whom she could trust to take watch in the middle of the night in enemy territory. She knew her way of life didn't lend itself to that kind of faith in others' dependability, so she'd never thought to make space for it in her dreams. It turned out that having a partner in crime wasn't bad at all. It was nice having someone to watch her back. It made life a tad less harrowing.

 

Not that their relationship resembled anything like the common definitions of friendship. They didn't share confidences or talk about their feelings. Everything he knew about her past came from whatever files SHIELD had drawn up about her; she wasn't sure how much, if anything, he knew about the Red Room or what they'd done to her, and she'd never ask. Everything she knew about his past came from asking her contacts to look into this man who expected her to depend on him for aid (which, given the nature of her contacts, meant that she knew everything there was to know about him, of course.) There was no casual intimacy, no hugging or declarations of feelings. There was simply... trust.

 

She trusted him enough to turn her back to him, to sleep in the same room (on occasion, in the same bed, if the situation called for it) with him without being armed to the teeth. She trusted him to keep his hands to himself, even to care for her wounds when she was incapacitated and to medicate her without drugging her or taking advantage of her vulnerability.

 

He trusted her to have his back, to keep him safe even when his hearing aids were out, to keep an eye and an ear out for signs of danger and report them on sight. He trusted her to stay even though they both knew she could take off at will and he'd never catch her again. He trusted her to rescue him when captured and get him out alive. He trusted her to keep her word, which was more than anyone had ever done in her entire life.

 

It was unconventional, but it worked for them.

 

That trust did not, as many later assumed, automatically transfer to Agent Coulson when Clint brought her in to meet his - and now hers, as well - handler. Where Clint was clearly a rogue player, a free bird who might allow SHIELD to call the shots for now but could and would take flight if those orders conflicted with his world view or best interests, Agent Coulson was the ultimate Suit. He was the Agent's Agent. One glance at him, and it was clear that he not only knew and followed company policy, he'd probably had a hand in writing half of it.

 

Natasha had spent the first half of her life under the thumb of a government agency. She had no liking for Suits, and distrusted them more than most, even if she'd apparently just signed herself over to the service of the agency he served. She worked with him because he worked with Clint, and Clint had earned her loyalty, but that didn't mean that she trusted this man whose masks never wavered, always presenting the world with a calm, collected façade. She was intimately familiar with such masks. She knew the darkness that could hide behind them. 

 

Where Clint earned her tentative trust in weeks and her unwavering loyalty in months, it took Agent Coulson years to fully win her over. She hid it well, disguising her doubts behind masks of her own, but she was sharply aware of the ever-present tension that characterized their relationship. They worked together well, and she did come to an understanding of sorts with the unruffled government goon who was apparently the third member of their party, but she never quite overcame her instinctive distrust of whom and what he represented. 

 

Nevertheless, she came to realize that she had adopted him. He was one of hers, and if anything were to happen to him, she would be compromised, just as she would if Clint were to come to harm. It was a startling realization for someone who'd only ever been able to rely on herself before.

 

She wasn't sure whether Strike Force Delta was her undoing or her salvation.


	2. Chapter 2

The thing was? No matter how much Natasha trusted her partner and her handler, it didn't translate to them socializing together outside of work or bringing their private lives into the equation. They cared about each other and spent the vast majority of their lives together - such was the nature of their jobs - so a certain degree of intimacy naturally developed between them, but she was only vaguely aware that Clint's relationship with Bobbi was on the rocks until they were getting a divorce. She had even less idea of what Coulson got up to on his down time. Theirs was a solid partnership and they depended on each other in the field, but that was where it started and ended, and Natasha was content with that state of affairs. Trusting someone else to watch her back without double-crossing her was nerve-wracking enough as it was; she didn't need or want to have her entire life taken over by others. The very idea made her feel hemmed in and invaded.

 

Unfortunately, it was difficult to avoid things bleeding over when you ended up living with those you worked with.

 

She was wary of the whole Avenger Initiative from the start. Fury's idea to take his best and brightest team and bring in a wholly unpredictable and unreliable collection of mavericks and ask them all to work together was, frankly, insulting, demeaning, wholly ridiculous, and utterly absurd. The only people on the team that she had any faith in were the former members of Strike Force Delta.

 

Stark was a menace, a spendthrift narcissist with an ego the size of a planet and a superhero complex that was going to get him and everyone else around him killed sooner or later. He was utterly unreliable even in his personal interactions and seemed to think his charm would get him through anything. His weakness for beautiful women (and sometimes men) was a well-known fact, and easily exploited. He'd hit on her within moments of their first face-to-face interaction and immediately brought her into his inner circle; if it was that easy for her to get close to him, it was a guarantee that others could do so as well.

 

Banner was unpredictable and unreliable; no matter his human self's intent, eventually the beast within would emerge, and there was no way to fight him off. The beast was violent, uncontrollable, and as far as anyone could tell, indestructible. Its intelligence was limited at best, and it seemed to be motivated solely through rage. Knowing, as she did, how easily rage could be induced and exploited, this was far from a comforting thought. She didn't particularly want to spend time in the same room as Banner, much less work with him. 

 

Rogers, at least, could be trusted to function within given parameters. He was a soldier, and there was a certain degree of teamwork and reliability built into that position. Unfortunately, he was also a naïve idealist who had little idea of how the world worked in this day and age, and he had little or no subtlety to speak of. His first instinct was always, and would always continue to be, to burst through the front door and confront the enemy head on, even when a different approach might save resources and lives. Depending on someone like that to have your back would be sheer madness. He'd have her killed within the year.

 

Thor hadn't even been intended to join the team. He had less subtlety than the rest of the team combined, and that was saying something given the nature of their motley group. He was utterly alien, and his motives and values couldn't be expected to align with those of the humans with whom he kept company. He knew little or nothing of "Midgardian" customs, was entirely ignorant of the society he'd joined in on, and couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut for the life of him. He was loud, booming, and overbearing. His sense of pride would be his undoing. 

 

No, the only people on the team whom she could depend on were Barton and Coulson.

 

...and then Barton got compromised.

 

...and Coulson died.


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha took the news of what Loki did to her partners like a punch to the gut. No - not like a punch. She'd been punched in the gut far too many times over the course of her life to think that this pain compared in any way. This felt rawer, cut deeper. This was a pain she had no defenses against, no means of fighting off and no illusion of control over.

 

She clamped down and held it together to as she fought to get her partner back. There was no place for emotion in the field, and she'd have to be at her best to face off against a being like Loki. She fought through the pain that left her almost breathless and she got Barton back.

 

Only to lose Coulson. 

 

This was a battle she couldn't win. She couldn't defeat death. She was powerless against it, powerless to save this man who had saved her time and again; this man she knew intimately and not at all, who had acted as her anchor for years.

 

She found herself spinning, drifting, and reverted to familiar patterns that have served her well over a lifetime of violence and mayhem. She raised her defenses, shut herself down. Allowing others in was a chink in the walls. It made her weak. She couldn't afford to be vulnerable, not with the life she led. She'd known that before and should have continued to be cognizant of that fact when she made the mistake of she leaving herself open to Clint and Coulson. She wouldn't make that mistake again.

 

She couldn't afford it. She wasn't sure she'd survive it if she did.

 

Following the Battle of New York, as the press had so creatively dubbed it, the mishmash of characters loosely labeled a team who had come together to fight off the (literal!) alien invaders went on to prove how close they'd grown in the process.

 

...they dispersed to all four corners of the Earth.

 

Natasha didn't keep track of them. Following their movements might indicate an emotional involvement, and she knew better than to leave herself open like that. She'd learned her lesson.

 

She had.

 

And she certainly had nothing to do with the Shield team assigned to tracking Banner running all over Peru when the man himself was safely ensconced in Djibuti.

 

Or the fact that the press was investigating a mystery man in Nebraska for his superficial resemblance towards a certain World War 2 superhero when the man himself was five states away.

 

She would've had to be keeping an eye on them in order to stage that sort of intervention, and Natalia Alianovna Romanova had a lifetime of experience in keeping herself apart from others. No battle, no matter the circumstances, should have the power to undermine that. She knew better than to let them in. That way lay only trouble.

 

Of course Clint had no such reservations. He knew exactly where the so-called "Avengers" were at any given time, and he made a point of keeping her in the loop, no matter the pointed silences or affected disinterest.

 

Sometimes she despaired of that man.

 

She also loved him with far fewer reservations than her guarded heart could comfortably admit to. Deep down among the thoughts she refused to acknowledge, she rather envied the man his ability to connect with others whole-heartedly. It had certainly served her well time and time again, and she could see the value he derived from those bonds.

 

She could also see the pain. His brother, Bobbi, Phil... the people he cared about had the greatest potential to inflict pain. They knew his weaknesses, his vulnerabilities. They could be used against him in more ways than one. It was suicide in their line of work, and yet he kept reaching out time and time again.

 

And here he was doing so yet again. He had adopted this motley group as his own. Battling together, shawarma, and crashing at the Tower in the immediate aftermath of the conflict appeared to have cemented an absolute and unrelenting bond between them in his mind. Natasha wasn't so sure she agreed, but Clint was set on his course of action.

 

And Clint was all Natasha had left, now that Coulson had left them. Where Clint went, so too would she.

 

But not without rolling her eyes and pointing out his idiocy.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, perhaps Natasha cared a little. Just a smidgen. Barely even at all, in fact.

Okay, Natasha had to admit to herself that she cared a little about this team of idiots as she sat by her keyboard, staring at the screen full of coded text informing her of Tony Stark's demise at the hand of a terrorist known as the Mandarin. She noted dimly that her fingers were numb and her breathing was a tad uneven. That wouldn't do at all.

She calmed herself.

This was not the time for panic or sorrow. What was done was done, and she was going to make the Mandarin burn for his mistakes. She shot off a quick text to Clint and settled in for the long haul, preparing to call on as many of her contacts as it took to track this man down and make him pay.

She wasn't sure what to do about Pepper. Flowers seemed crass and cliche, and cards were not her thing, so she settled for ensuring that Jarvis had the number to one of her burner phones. She might not be one for comfort, but she could make herself available in other ways if Pepper ever had need to call on her.

In the mean time, it was time to get to work.

She had a terrorist to track down.

He was going to rue the day he ever heard of Tony Stark.

And it would be glorious.

...of course, three days later she was standing in an airport (wearing niqab and traveling under a false passport, naturally, it wouldn't do to be recognized where _she_ was going), watching as an army of Iron Men battled it out with unknown assailants on live television. It wasn't clear from the shaky footage who was manning the suits, but Tony's fingerprints were all over it.

She leaned back in the uncomfortable plastic chair as something loosened in her chest and her breath started to come more easily. 

He was alive.

That slippery fucking bastard was alive.

How he'd made it through the decimation of his mansion was an unknown. Why he'd kept his survival a secret was a complete mystery. One thing was clear though: Natasha wasn't sure what was going on, but she _was_ sure he'd _better_ have a good explanation for all the rash havoc, mayhem, and destruction of property. ~~He owed her for the heartache he'd inflicted on her.~~ ~~She was going to kill that man. Just watch her.~~ And she wanted to hear it.

Not that he was likely to share those reasons freely. For a man whose life was an open book, Tony was exceptionally skilled at holding the clandestine things close to his chest. In all likelihood, he'd gloss over most of it with a joke and an outrageous statement or two to distract the camera or conversational partner and make them follow his lead. What tidbits he'd give out would be just enough for the average person to feel informed while simultaneously keeping anything he didn't want to share with the class far off the radar.

Tony was very good at what he did. There'd be no leaks. She wouldn't get any answers second or thirdhand. If she wanted to get more of the bigger picture herself, she'd have to go see him in person, and even then it was no guarantee that he'd welcome her.

Something about the past several days had shaken something loose inside her, and she couldn't keep pretending to herself that she didn't care, that he was just a colleague, and barely even that. He'd spent far more time as a mark than as someone she could trust at her side or her back, so it had been easy to push everything away up until this point. (Not to mention that he was an asshole - and freely admitted it to all and sundry, to his credit - which made it easy to forget the positives when distance in time and space blurred the edges of memory.) Nonetheless, she couldn't keep fooling herself indefinitely. He'd gotten under her skin and settled in to stay.

With a mental sigh, she started to rearrange her calendar in her head. She wouldn't be able to go straight to his side - she and Clint had kicked over quite the anthill in their vengeance against the Mandarin and Ten Rings in the wake of Tony's "death," and she'd need to deal with the fallout before she'd be able to tear herself away and check in with him or she'd be out half a dozen different identities in three different countries, a couple of safe houses, and a range of different contacts and informers. A text would have to suffice for now.

And maybe a souvenir. Surely some of the members of Ten Rings would have mementos Tony would love to have. Just a little something to remember them by. She'd figure something out. She was pretty sure he'd appreciate the gesture.

She was glad the niqab covered most of her face. She was fairly certain the smile she was allowing herself to express was inappropriate to the setting, but it felt so good to let it loose that she couldn't help taking advantage of the relative privacy afforded by the covering. Sometimes it was nice not to have to mask her feelings at all times. These times were few and far between, and she had every intention of taking advantage while she could. It wouldn't be long before she'd have to shift to another identity, after all, and that one would be far more revealing. There'd be no space for uncontrolled emotions when the shift came, so she might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

She checked the board. Fifteen minutes before boarding started. She'd done most of the processing she needed to at this point, but she'd have a little bit more time before her phone had to go off. Enough time to send off texts to Clint and Tony and make plans with them before she ditched the burner and switched to a new one to go with the new persona. Clint would be glad to hear about Tony, if he hadn't already, and it couldn't let to know that she  ~~cared~~ ~~was looking out for his well-being~~ was coming into town to see him.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think this is it for now. I want this to be a story about building trust and connection, and I think if I were to go on from here I'd be forced to move into Age of Ultron and Civil War. I feel like this is a good stopping place to end on a hopeful note.

Of course, things were never quite so simple as all that. Before she had the chance to tie up all her loose ends, they got notification that Jasper Sitwell and a number of other Shield agents were being held by pirates somewhere in the Indian Ocean. She was by no means close with Sitwell, but he'd been a friend of Coulson's, and she couldn't in all good conscience leave his rescue up to someone else. Fury shoehorning in a need-to-know mission-within-a-mission disgruntled her a touch, but it wasn't the first time he'd called on her to perform such a duty and it certainly wouldn't be the last, so she shrugged it off with equanimity.

Not that Rogers saw it that way.

Granted, they'd been developing some sort of rapport over the course of a handful of missions here and there, but the intensity of his feelings of betrayal was a tad unexpected. She realized with a start that she'd forgotten to factor in the fact that most people weren't used to the life of isolation that was par for the course for the spies and intelligence agents they worked with. She'd spent her entire life alone in a crowd. Remove her from one environment to an entirely foreign one without notice and it might take her a bit to orient herself, learn the local norms, and make connections, but transplanting her would never leave her adrift the way that he still was.

She'd known that Rogers was a social sort. That much was obvious. He needed people. He needed connections, and he'd been grasping desperately for them the entire time she'd known him.

So she'd tried to put him in contact with people. He'd integrated well with a close knit group of militaristic peers back in his day, so a whisper in Fury's ear got him working closely with a Shield STRIKE team. She introduced him around, tried to set him up with dates. She even pulled a few strings to make sure the person monitoring his apartment was a pretty - and single - agent, so there was a chance that if he showed initiative and decided to flirt independently of her machinations, the object of his desire would still have the necessary clearance for that kind of relationship.

(And then it turned out that the attractive single agent who had been given the assignment was Sharon Carter, of all people. Because some idiot thought that if the man had gone for the aunt, the niece would serve as a perfect replacement. As if women were interchangeable puzzle pieces. Heads were going to roll over that one. Even if the blatant misogyny involved in that casting decision hadn't been an issue, this was meant to be an intelligence agency. For someone that high in the ranks to make such a blatant error was beyond inexcusable.)

She'd seen her machinations paying off. He'd been bonding with his team. He hadn't actually taken her up on any of her offers to set him up, but he'd flirted a bit with "Kate" and the waitress at his favorite coffee shop, so he was starting to put himself back out there. He'd maintained some contact with the others who'd fought with them in New York, and he seemed to handle his interactions with fans with ease and aplomb. He was adjusting, bit by bit. He had a routine that kept him stable and he'd created a safe space at home where he could retreat to if he needed something more familiar. Hell, he'd even independently sought out a new friend during his morning run!

He was making those connections that were so vital to keeping Steve Rogers sane.

She just hadn't realized that his very nature meant that when she and Rogers went from coworkers to colleagues to something approaching actual friendship, his very nature caused a perceptual switch where Natasha-the-friend took the place of Natasha-the-spy.

She should have recognized it of course. Once she thought about it, it was obvious.

His connections - his relationships, friendships, community, family, everything he loved and needed - were built on trust.

He trusted her.

Steve Rogers, Captain America, a man who had seen her files and watched her in action both on the field and as she slipped between personas and personalities. A man who had watched her effortlessly manipulate a god.

He trusted her.

The mind boggled. 

She'd been trusted before, of course. She was very good at inspiring trust. It was one of the many skills that made her so accomplished in her field.

But this was different.

He trusted _her._

He knew what she was capable of. He'd watched her twist people around her finger with only a few words. He knew of her past. The lives she'd taken. Her double crosses. The brainwashing. The triggers. The deceptions and dangers that made up every inch of her life.

And this man willingly put his faith in her despite it all.

It was breathtaking, and she hadn't even picked up on it until the moment it was shattered.

Because she'd placed duty above camaraderie, and Steve Rogers put those he loved above his faith in authority.

She wouldn't soon forget that, if she managed to rebuild that broken connection. 

She would have engraved it on her brain even if it _hadn't_ coincided with the discovery of the corruption that had infiltrated every layer of the organization she'd dedicated her loyalties to. 

Suddenly faith in people made a little more sense. At least with people, you could see what you were getting. Bureaucracy could cover a multitude of sins. 

Now all she had to do was convince Rogers - _Steve_ \- of her sincerity, foil the plot endangering both them and the world, root out the rot at the heart of Shield, keep everyone alive long enough to drag everyone back to Manhattan and turn this Avengers thing into an actual team (maybe even a family of choice? but that might be moving a bit too fast, best to start with building the connections and giving them a space to flourish and grow)...

...oh, and apparently rescue her new best friend's brainwashed old best friend from the very same people who'd destroyed the agency she had dedicated her life to for the past fifteen years. At least this time, there was no conflict of interest? 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this and encouraging me as I wrote this. I had honestly given up on it last year when no one seemed interested in it, so you can all thank wineandroses for asking for more and getting me going again. It feels like a real accomplishment to have gotten through an entire story, beginning to end, and it wouldn't have happened without you guys. So thank you.


End file.
